Mask

A mask is something you put over the picture — a prop or face paint from the ready-made library, a privacy cover, a callout, a skeleton drawing, or a picture laid on a surface. Open Add and press Mask: it lands in the middle, selected, wearing the library's default look and following nothing, and you move, resize, turn, group and reorder it like any other item. Having it sit on a face is a choice you make from the target button at the bottom of its card — nothing is read from your picture until you ask.

A mask's own tabs. A selected mask's first menu along the bottom is Mask, and the last is Transform, with Effects and Border between them. The Mask tab holds two things — what the mask draws, and, behind its target button, what it sits on:

• Mask — what the mask draws: one strip of cards you scroll sideways through, in five sections: Wear (every lens in the library, each card showing its prop straight on), Privacy (Blur, Pixelate, Bar and Eye bar), Callouts (Circle, Underline, Pointer, Label and Trail), Skeleton (Skeleton, Pose trail, Form and Ghost) and Surface (Replace and Decal). At the right end stands the mask's own card: Tracked or Not tracked across its top, the mask itself in the middle, and along its bottom the target, which opens the tracking list, then — once the mask carries something of your own — the star, which stars the mask whole, and last the settings button, which opens the worn style's controls in the strip's place; the strip offers every other style, and the search column at its start narrows it as you type. Pressing a card changes what the mask draws and leaves what it follows alone. A card pictures the mask itself; a privacy card pictures the part of your picture under the mask.
• Tracking — the target button at the bottom of the mask's card. Every mask starts Not tracked. Press it and the tracked items list opens in the strip's place, the button lit; press it again, or Escape, to bring the styles back.
• Transform — its flip, then its opacity, then where the mask sits, how big it is and how far it is turned, as numbers you can type. While the mask follows something, a line says what is placing it instead.

Turn a prop to face another way. A selected mask wearing a prop drawn from many angles shows a larger blue ring at its centre while it follows nothing, whenever it is big enough on screen (pinch to zoom in on a small one). Drag the ring to turn the prop — sideways to turn it left and right, up and down to tip it — and it redraws at that angle; a drag anywhere else on the mask still moves it. The ring travels out toward the mask's own edges, so dragging it to the right edge turns the prop as far right as it was drawn. Arrow keys nudge it a pixel at a time, Shift makes each press ten, and Home turns it back to face straight on. On a picture the prop uses a separate, much sharper set of those drawings than a video does, because a picture holds still and a video does not.

Have a mask follow a face. Press the target on the Mask tab, then Add tracked item and the kind you want, such as Track a new face… — every kind is listed, and one the mask's style cannot sit on says what it needs. A note at the mask reads Tap the thing to track. and what it finds is drawn on the picture; tap the one you mean. The buttons stand in a small container under the picture: for an object, Add (+) and Subtract (−) with a hint saying what your next tap does, then Undo, Cancel and the highlighted Track; a face takes a single tap, so it has just Cancel and Track. Press Track to start. Reading the picture… shows on the mask while it works, and the ✕ at the top of the tracked items list stops it at either step. When it finishes, the mask sits on that face — placed, sized and angled to it. While it follows something, its place is the face's: the Position numbers and the aim ring step aside. What it reads is the whole head, hair included: a prop worn on the face — a crown, goggles, a full mask — draws over the face, and with Behind subject set to Yes, a prop such as a halo ring is tucked behind the head. On a video the mask follows its face from frame to frame, as the tracking page describes.

Tracked objects are saved on the picture. What you tracked stays with the picture it was read from until you delete it, so a second mask can follow the same face straight from its tracked items list — press Attach on its row — without reading the picture again. The list shows every object tracked on the page, each row saying how many things use it (used by 1 item), and pressing a row outlines that object on the picture. One the mask's style cannot sit on stays listed with what it needs, such as Needs a tracked face, and no Attach — change the style card to use it. While a mask follows something, a style card that object cannot carry is shown dimmed and says what the style needs.

Stop following, or delete. Press Remove on the list's top row, which names what the mask follows, and the mask stays exactly where it was drawn, an ordinary item you place by hand again. The tracked object stays saved for next time. The trash button on an object's row deletes it from the picture and lets every mask following it go; a Beauty look that followed it goes too, and any other look stays, a Retouch then evening the skin tone across the whole picture. It is one step, which one Undo brings back. If the picture itself is replaced — by a Smart Edit, say — the mask tells you it needs tracking again.

Effects and borders work on masks. A mask takes the Effects and Border menus like any drawn mark, applied to what the mask draws — a look is centred on the mask's own drawing (its prop, its lines, its labels), not on the box it sits in, and it stays exactly as it is when the mask, or the face it follows, moves. The one exception is a privacy cover: it shows the picture beneath it rather than ink of its own, so it takes neither.

A mask on a video

A mask is something you put over the video that can follow a subject through the shot — a prop or face paint from the ready-made library, a privacy cover, a callout, a skeleton drawing, or a picture laid on a surface. Open Add and press Mask: it lands in the middle of the frame, selected and following nothing, with its own row on the timeline, and you move, resize, turn and time it like any other drawing. Nothing in your footage is read until you ask the mask to follow something.

A mask's own tabs. A selected mask's first tab along the bottom is Mask, and the last is Transform, with Effects, Animate and Border between them.

At the right end stands the mask's own card: Tracked or Not tracked across its top, the mask itself in the middle, and along its bottom the target, which opens the tracking list, then — once the mask carries something of your own — the star, which stars the mask whole, and last the settings button, which opens the worn style's controls in the strip's place; the strip offers every other style, and its search column narrows it as you type. A card pictures the mask itself; a privacy card pictures the part of the video under the mask.

• Tracking — the target button at the bottom of the mask's card; press it and the tracked items list opens in the strip's place, the button lit, and again, or Escape, brings the styles back. Every mask starts Not tracked, and the list shows every tracked object in the video, named with its clip when the video has more than one; one this mask's style cannot sit on says what it needs and offers no Attach. Once the mask follows something in a video with sound, the list also holds the beat controls: Pulse size, Throb opacity and a glow, each with its own amount, plus React to for the part of the sound it listens to (Bass, Mid, Treble or Level) and Source when the video has more than one sound. A privacy cover never pulses.
• Transform — its opacity, and where the mask sits, how big it is and how far it is turned, while it follows nothing; while it follows something, a line says what is placing it instead. A picked mask wearing a prop drawn from many angles also shows a larger blue ring at its centre while it follows nothing, whenever it is big enough on screen: drag the ring to turn the prop, and press Home to face it straight on again; a drag anywhere else on the mask still moves it.

Have a mask follow a subject. Press the target on the Mask tab, then Add tracked item and the kind you want, such as Track a new face…. It reads the clip under the playhead: a note at the mask says Tap the thing to track. and you point at the subject on the video. The buttons stand in a small container under the video: for an object, Add (+) and Subtract (−) with a hint saying what your next tap does, then Undo, Cancel and the highlighted Track; a face or a body takes a single tap, so it has just Cancel and Track. Track starts the run. The mask then follows that subject for the rest of the clip. While it follows, its place is the subject's: it has no box to drag, and the outline of what it follows is drawn at full strength instead, so you can see what it is on. A body's outline covers the whole person, and a face's the whole head, hair included.

Tracked objects are saved on the clip. What you track stays with the clip it was read from until you delete it, so another mask — or a Beauty or Retouch look — can use it straight away without reading the footage again: press Attach on its row. While a mask follows something, the cards that subject cannot carry are shown dimmed, and pressing one says what the style needs, such as Needs a tracked body.

Stop following, or delete. Press Remove on the list's top row, which names what the mask follows, and the mask stays exactly where it was at the playhead, an ordinary drawing again. The tracked object stays saved. Each object's row says how many things use it — masks and looks alike, used by 1 item — and its trash button deletes the object from its clip: every mask following it is let go, a Beauty look that followed it goes too, and any other look stays, a Retouch then evening the skin tone across the whole clip — in one step Undo brings back. Under the row you pressed, Fix the tracking here corrects the track on the frame you are on, and Fix the weak tracking at a moment jumps to where the tracker was least sure; a look that follows a face offers the same two in its Recipe. If the clip's footage is replaced, the mask says The footage changed, so this needs tracking again.

Props behave like real objects. A worn prop is drawn from every head angle, so it turns as the head turns instead of staying flat. Its settings add Sway, which lets loose parts — ears, wings, a halo — trail and settle a beat behind a fast movement, and Behind subject, which tucks the parts that belong behind the person, such as a halo ring or a pair of wings, out of sight behind them. A prop worn on the face — a crown, goggles, a full mask — draws over the face.

Effects, borders and animation work on masks. A mask takes Effects, Animate and Border like any drawing, applied to what the mask draws. A privacy cover is the exception: it shows the picture beneath it rather than ink of its own, so it takes none of the three — and it never fades in or out, because a cover at half strength would show what it hides. It also never uncovers on a frame the tracking is unsure about: it grows to cover more, and if it loses the subject altogether it covers the whole picture rather than nothing.

Where you can use a mask

• Image — Groups
• Video — Groups
• Document — Groups

What you can do with a mask you made

Once a mask carries something of your own — an effect, a border, an animation or something it follows — the star in its card's bottom row, between the target and the settings button, stars it whole, and a starred mask can be put into another picture, video or document:

Star · Copy

A mask style's settings

The settings button on the mask's card opens the worn style's settings, under the style's own name; hover over one, or hold a finger still on it, to see the sentence listed for it below. Each style holds the settings below that it draws with — a lens its parts' opacity, tint, blend, sway and whether it stands behind the subject; a callout or a skeleton its line, its padding, trail and joints; a privacy cover its shape, strength and margin.

Mask

• Padding — How far a circle or an underline mark stands off the subject it marks, in pixels.
• Trail — How many seconds of the subject’s path its trail keeps behind it.
• Color by speed — Whether a comet’s trail is coloured by how fast its subject moves.
• Shape — Whether a privacy cover is an oval or a box.
  • Oval · Box
• Strength — How strongly a privacy cover blurs or pixelates what it hides.
• Margin — How far past the subject’s box a privacy cover reaches, in pixels, so nothing slips out.
• Joint size — How big the dots drawn on a pose’s joints are, in pixels; zero draws none.
• Echoes — How many past poses a motion trail draws behind the body.
• Ghost opacity — How solid the ghost pose drawn for comparison is.
• Label color — The colour of the words a form analysis writes beside the body.
• Ghost color — The colour of the ghost pose drawn for comparison.
• Joint angles — Whether a form analysis writes each joint’s angle beside it.
• Swing plane — Whether a form analysis draws the plane the swing travels in.
• Phase label — Whether a form analysis names the phase of the movement.
• Opacity — How solid the picture mapped onto a surface is, over what it covers.
• Opacity — How solid a worn lens is over the picture.
• Sway — How heavily a lens’s props trail their subject as it moves: 0 holds them rigid.
• Tint — The colour cast laid over a lens’s props; untinted lays none.
• Tint strength — How strongly a lens prop’s colour cast tints it, from none to the full cast.
• Blend — How a lens’s props are laid onto the picture: normally, multiplied, screened or added.
  • Normal · Multiply · Screen · Add
• Behind subject — Whether a lens’s props sit behind their subject, cut where it stands in front.
  • No · Yes

Glow

• Glow amount — How much of the beat reaches the glow: at 100% a full beat lights the whole glow, and above it a weaker beat already does.
• React to — Which part of the sound the glow answers: the bass, the middle, the treble, or the whole loudness.
  • Bass · Mid · Treble · Level
• Glow color — The colour of the glow the item casts on the beat.
• Glow radius — How far the glow spreads round the item at a full beat.
• Glow sound — Which of the video's sounds the glow answers; with none named, it answers the whole soundtrack.

A callout's and a skeleton's line — its Color, its Thickness and its style — and a privacy bar's Color are an ink's settings, described on the Shape page.